Central universities not filling up 7,000 posts

New Delhi, Feb 26 (IANS) Over 7,000 teaching and non-teaching posts continue to be vacant in 25 central universities, the Lok Sabha was informed Tuesday. This is despite the central government having asked these institutions to fill vacant posts.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari in reply to a question in Lower House said despite repeated reminders by the University Grants Commission to central universities and state governments, no initiative has been taken by the respective agencies.

The commission stressed filling up posts on regular basis as per norms, since hiring faculty as contract, part time or guest teachers may affect the quality of education, she said.

There are 415 universities in India and 6,680 colleges across the country, the minister informed the house. The government has raised the retirement age of the teachers from 62 to 65 in all centrally-funded technical and higher educational institutions.

This has been done to overcome shortage of experienced teachers. However, state governments haven’t taken steps in this regard despite the central government asking them to do so. Most of the state governments are of the view that by increasing the retirement age of teachers, they cannot put an additional financial burden and create impediment for young scholars.